To date, the most effective and the least expensive mechanism of manufacturing and dosing medications is in solid pill form. As is commonly understood by those skilled in the art, pills generally refer to pharmacological oral dosages of active ingredient(s) in solid form. In popular culture, the term “pill” is often used to refer to: tablets, capsules, and caplets. Unfortunately, there are several potential problems associated with administering this medium of medication. The problems associated with administering pills in whole/solid form include Patients having impaired swallowing ability secondary to various medical conditions, swallowing disorders associated with aging, altered mental status, altered level of consciousness, and/or general difficulty or aversion to swallowing pills whole. To accommodate the special needs of patients with these problems, medicine solids are typically transformed into a fine powder that can be mixed with food solids or dissolved in a liquid, which can then be optimally administered to the Patient either orally or through a feeding tube.
To achieve this physical state transformation, several different types of pill crushing and grinding devices have been created, which are each capable of reducing medicine solids into powdered form. A few common pill crusher and grinder device types include: tabletop crushers, handheld grinders, and handheld crushers. As would be appreciated by those skilled in the art (e.g., health care professionals who routinely administer dosed medicine solids in reduced form), the tabletop variety of medicine crushers, although often very efficient at pulverizing medicines to a fine powder, are typically: bulky, overbuilt, not easily transportable, noisy in operation, and expensive (See e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,364,102, Engel et al.; 7,427,041, Hall et al.; 6,059,209, Barson; and 7,300,006, Weisbeck). In contrast, most modern handheld pill crushers and grinders are often very inefficient due to the fact that they are underbuilt and poorly designed to achieve similar results as their tabletop counterparts.
Handheld pill grinders on the market today generally provide poor rotational mechanical advantage (See e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,148,995, Hurst). These devices may require a significant amount of hand strength and time to properly reduce a pill into a useable form. Further, all pill grinders require the medication being ground to come in direct physical contact with the grinding mechanism, (e.g., grinding faces, blades, or serrated edges), and are difficult to thoroughly and effectively cleanse between uses. As such, pill grinders are very prone to cross contamination and are generally not preferred for use in medical service facilities such as hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. Given that some people in society have potentially lethal medication allergies, these types of devices are best restricted to use in the home and by a sole individual, in the interest of patient safety.
Handheld pill crushers on the market today can provide for contamination prevention by utilizing plastic pouches or fitted pairs of paper cups that a medicine solid may be respectively placed inside, or between, before being crushed or pulverized (See e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,123,601, Lavin; and 5,863,001, Schulze). Unfortunately, these devices provide insufficient mechanical advantage to effectively reduce a medicine solid to a soluble form required for effective, reliable feeding tube administration. Modern handheld crushers also require a significant amount of hand strength to operate (e.g., due to single pivot point actuation), particularly for dense, coated medicine solids.
As would be understood by those skilled in the art, plastic tubing used for administering reduced medications in liquid form can easily become clogged with deposits or buildups of reduced medication particles which are too large to properly dissolve in a liquid solvent. Further, medical practitioners (e.g., physicians and registered nurses) come in all shapes, ages, and sizes. This can result in largely varying hand strength amongst different medical practitioners who may be responsible for crushing a dosed medicine with a pill crusher type hand tool. Accordingly, in some scenarios, a hand tool that may work effectively enough for one medical practitioner (e.g., a practitioner with substantial hand strength) may not work at all for another medical practitioner (e.g., a practitioner with deficient hand strength), if that individual is incapable of providing the requisite mechanical force to a handheld crusher to allow it to effectively crush a particular medication solid.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to have an improved handheld pill crusher device that was designed with sufficient mechanical advantage, such that it was capable of easily crushing any medicine solid in response to minimal applied force. It would also be advantageous to have a device that were ergonomically adapted to fit the hand of any medical practitioner and that facilitated powerful pill crushing actuation relative to an applied force. It would be helpful if this handheld crusher device were designed to be used in combination with disposable medicine retainers, such as plastic pouches and sleeves, in order to prevent the possibility of medication contamination. It would also be beneficial if this device were truly portable, such that it could be readily used at any medication administration location by any health care provider or self-administering patient. More particularly, it would be beneficial to be able to use the device at a patient's bedside (in keeping with nursing theory and practice) to administer medications in the safest possible manner, thereby reducing the possibility/potential for medication administration errors. Further, it would be advantageous if an improved handheld pill crusher were quiet in operation (so as not to disturb a sleeping patient) and if it also included an effective pill splitter component that allowed a medical practitioner to split a pill to a preferred dose before crushing it. This could further enhance the effectiveness of the device by adding to its capabilities, thereby making it a multi-function hand tool.